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If such a case succeeds given how much Amazon is is already doing to prevent coronavirus, say goodbye to economy recovery. Most companies aren't capable of doin

If such a case succeeds given how much Amazon is is already doing to prevent coronavirus, say goodbye to economy recovery. Most companies aren't capable of doing even a fraction of the measures Amazon has put in place. If Amazon can be found liable here, pretty much every business in the country that tries and re-open will find themselves liable.

oarsinsync 6y ago
> given how much Amazon is is already doing to prevent coronavirus This statement that you've provided as fact is the crux of the complaint. There are multiple reports claiming that Amazon is not adequately protecting warehouse workers. There are reports of whistle-blowers being fired for speaking out about it. I don't know which side is true. It's entirely plausible that both sides are true, and it could be variable between teams and/or facilities. I don't think it's fair to make a blanket statement that Amazon is 100% doing right by their warehouse employees, especially considering the numerous reports prior to all this about said staff having limited timed bathroom breaks.
- malandrew 6y ago
  Of the multiple reports I've heard of the list of measures put in place, I can't imagine 99% or more of businesses going as far as they have. You can certainly argue that they aren't going far enough. I'm not debating that one way or the other. I'm only arguing that what they have done is far more than I would expect of any business for functions where employees cannot perform their job remotely. FTA: > Amazon is spending more than $800 million on coronavirus safety in this year’s first half, including cleaning, temperature checks and face masks. $800 million is a significant amount and proportionally more than I would expect most businesses to spend, plus Amazon has the benefit at being a technology company that is good at automating/scaling solutions, so that amount of money will go further than what most businesses can pull off dollar for dollar.
monadic2 6y ago
Why are we reopening in the first place? What could be more predictable than this result? I hope the case succeeds. I can go onto amazon right now and by a game console. Why? What hope do we individuals have against business if this doesn’t go through?
- darawk 6y ago
  We're re-opening because we have to. We cannot realistically stay closed until a cure comes out. Very optimistically, that's not going to happen until the end of the year, at best. We have two choices: 1. Reopen the economy now, prevent further economic damage, but lose a lot of lives to coronavirus. 2. Reopen the economy later, and lose the exact same number of lives, but with a bunch of economic damage to go along with it. The choice is easy, but nobody wants to be seen making it, because all of the options result in large numbers of deaths.
  - monadic2 6y ago
    > We're re-opening because we have to. We cannot realistically stay closed until a cure comes out. Why not? We have our own currency and have no qualms manipulating it to manipulate the stock market. We can communicate with other countries. By opening up our economy we’re pointing a gun at the world. This just strikes me as a very naïve and dogmatic worldview. Where are you getting this from?
    - darawk 6y ago
      > Why not? We have our own currency and have no qualms manipulating it to manipulate the stock market. We can communicate with other countries. People are starting to go crazy. Personally I couldn't be happier with lockdown, I love staying inside. I'd be happy to do this for the rest of my life, but almost everyone else I know is losing it. And that's not even to speak of all the people who've lost their jobs and can't make money. It seems like you are proposing that to fix the income issue we just print money indefinitely until a cure comes out, and then restart the economy. Doing something like that is not really comparable to the kind of QE that's being done in the stock market. It'd have to be done on an incredible scale, and nobody really knows what the effects of that would be on the economy. > By opening up our economy we’re pointing a gun at the world. Many countries are already open. Sweden, China, Japan, Korea. Reopening isn't pointing a gun at others, it's pointing a gun at ourselves. My point isn't that the gun isn't there. It's that we're getting shot no matter what, the only choice we have is whether we also want to lose a few million more jobs and a few trillion more dollars of GDP. > This just strikes me as a very naïve and dogmatic worldview. Where are you getting this from? I'm just looking at the outcome potentials as I see them. A cure, optimistically, is 9-12 months away. Every month we keep the economy closed, more businesses blow up, because they aren't generating revenue to meet their fixed obligations. They are firing employees, and then those employees can't make rent, and then the landlords can't make their mortgage payments, and on and on. This stuff will cascade throughout the economy and destroy it, and it gets worse the longer we wait. You can fix some of this with cash transfers, but not all of it, and the long and medium term effects of large scale cash transfers of the kind that would be necessary are not well understood. Originally the purpose of lockdown was supposed to be "flattening the curve" so as not to overwhelm the medical system with peak demand. That is and was a good goal, that we have more or less achieved. The goal of lockdown was never to just wait out the entire virus, because that's just not realistic.
ta17711771 6y ago
Maybe we NEED to be closed for a while. Slow down the consumption. Grow our own food. Barter with each other for services. We can reverse some of the damage. Let's do it.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Can't grow your own food at short notice unless you really love cress.
  - ta17711771 6y ago
    We'd better get started, and not stop this time, then. Everyone used to have "Victory" gardens or whatever they were called....why did we fuck that up? Postmates? Another 5 hours of overtime? To pay for the Maserati and Postmates?
    - pjc50 6y ago
      People used to have gardens in the first place, yes. In high density urban environments that's quite the luxury. It's hard work, not very efficient, and highly seasonal. And if you're in the overtime-earning class you're not buying a Maserati. Lots of places in America mandate that your visible garden be grass. Even if the climate is really unsuitable.
      - morsch 6y ago
        > Lots of places in America mandate that your visible garden be grass. Even if the climate is really unsuitable. I don't have any retro-agricultural nostalgia beyond growing tomatos for fun, but that is something you can and should change either way.
      - ta17711771 6y ago
        > Lots of places in America mandate that your visible garden be grass. Lots of places in America mandate you don't do over 55MPH, but yet.... They can't stop us all. Just grow.
- 6y ago

oarsinsync 6y ago

> given how much Amazon is is already doing to prevent coronavirus This statement that you've provided as fact is the crux of the complaint. There are multiple reports claiming that Amazon is not adequately protecting warehouse workers. There are reports of whistle-blowers being fired for speaking out about it. I don't know which side is true. It's entirely plausible that both sides are true, and it could be variable between teams and/or facilities. I don't think it's fair to make a blanket statement that Amazon is 100% doing right by their warehouse employees, especially considering the numerous reports prior to all this about said staff having limited timed bathroom breaks.

malandrew 6y ago
Of the multiple reports I've heard of the list of measures put in place, I can't imagine 99% or more of businesses going as far as they have. You can certainly argue that they aren't going far enough. I'm not debating that one way or the other. I'm only arguing that what they have done is far more than I would expect of any business for functions where employees cannot perform their job remotely. FTA: > Amazon is spending more than $800 million on coronavirus safety in this year’s first half, including cleaning, temperature checks and face masks. $800 million is a significant amount and proportionally more than I would expect most businesses to spend, plus Amazon has the benefit at being a technology company that is good at automating/scaling solutions, so that amount of money will go further than what most businesses can pull off dollar for dollar.

monadic2 6y ago

Why are we reopening in the first place? What could be more predictable than this result? I hope the case succeeds. I can go onto amazon right now and by a game console. Why? What hope do we individuals have against business if this doesn’t go through?

darawk 6y ago
We're re-opening because we have to. We cannot realistically stay closed until a cure comes out. Very optimistically, that's not going to happen until the end of the year, at best. We have two choices: 1. Reopen the economy now, prevent further economic damage, but lose a lot of lives to coronavirus. 2. Reopen the economy later, and lose the exact same number of lives, but with a bunch of economic damage to go along with it. The choice is easy, but nobody wants to be seen making it, because all of the options result in large numbers of deaths.
- monadic2 6y ago
  > We're re-opening because we have to. We cannot realistically stay closed until a cure comes out. Why not? We have our own currency and have no qualms manipulating it to manipulate the stock market. We can communicate with other countries. By opening up our economy we’re pointing a gun at the world. This just strikes me as a very naïve and dogmatic worldview. Where are you getting this from?
  - darawk 6y ago
    > Why not? We have our own currency and have no qualms manipulating it to manipulate the stock market. We can communicate with other countries. People are starting to go crazy. Personally I couldn't be happier with lockdown, I love staying inside. I'd be happy to do this for the rest of my life, but almost everyone else I know is losing it. And that's not even to speak of all the people who've lost their jobs and can't make money. It seems like you are proposing that to fix the income issue we just print money indefinitely until a cure comes out, and then restart the economy. Doing something like that is not really comparable to the kind of QE that's being done in the stock market. It'd have to be done on an incredible scale, and nobody really knows what the effects of that would be on the economy. > By opening up our economy we’re pointing a gun at the world. Many countries are already open. Sweden, China, Japan, Korea. Reopening isn't pointing a gun at others, it's pointing a gun at ourselves. My point isn't that the gun isn't there. It's that we're getting shot no matter what, the only choice we have is whether we also want to lose a few million more jobs and a few trillion more dollars of GDP. > This just strikes me as a very naïve and dogmatic worldview. Where are you getting this from? I'm just looking at the outcome potentials as I see them. A cure, optimistically, is 9-12 months away. Every month we keep the economy closed, more businesses blow up, because they aren't generating revenue to meet their fixed obligations. They are firing employees, and then those employees can't make rent, and then the landlords can't make their mortgage payments, and on and on. This stuff will cascade throughout the economy and destroy it, and it gets worse the longer we wait. You can fix some of this with cash transfers, but not all of it, and the long and medium term effects of large scale cash transfers of the kind that would be necessary are not well understood. Originally the purpose of lockdown was supposed to be "flattening the curve" so as not to overwhelm the medical system with peak demand. That is and was a good goal, that we have more or less achieved. The goal of lockdown was never to just wait out the entire virus, because that's just not realistic.

ta17711771 6y ago

Maybe we NEED to be closed for a while. Slow down the consumption. Grow our own food. Barter with each other for services. We can reverse some of the damage. Let's do it.

pjc50 6y ago
Can't grow your own food at short notice unless you really love cress.
- ta17711771 6y ago
  We'd better get started, and not stop this time, then. Everyone used to have "Victory" gardens or whatever they were called....why did we fuck that up? Postmates? Another 5 hours of overtime? To pay for the Maserati and Postmates?
  - pjc50 6y ago
    People used to have gardens in the first place, yes. In high density urban environments that's quite the luxury. It's hard work, not very efficient, and highly seasonal. And if you're in the overtime-earning class you're not buying a Maserati. Lots of places in America mandate that your visible garden be grass. Even if the climate is really unsuitable.
    - morsch 6y ago
      > Lots of places in America mandate that your visible garden be grass. Even if the climate is really unsuitable. I don't have any retro-agricultural nostalgia beyond growing tomatos for fun, but that is something you can and should change either way.
    - ta17711771 6y ago
      > Lots of places in America mandate that your visible garden be grass. Lots of places in America mandate you don't do over 55MPH, but yet.... They can't stop us all. Just grow.
6y ago